Chandigarh: The Punjab government on Thursday gave a major relief to employees on the verge of retirement by relieving them of the need to secure clearance from the state vigilance bureau.

In a significant decision, the state government has authorised the administrative departments to issue pension/vigilance clearance certificates to their group A and B employees having drawing and disbursing powers.

An official spokesman said that the employees would not need to secure the clearance from the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (PVB).

He said that every government employee requiring pension/vigilance clearance certificates would have to submit a self-declaration to the effect of his/her involvement/non-involvement in any vigilance inquiry or FIR to the best of his knowledge.

The vigilance bureau would supply department wise negative list of government employees against whom any vigilance inquiry or FIR was registered to the concerned administrative departments and further update the negative list after every 15 days.

Besides this, the information would also be uploaded on vigilance bureau website.